>Even if 99% of users have to turn it off for performance>reasons. In 12 months time the hardware will catch up. Please>dont make us wait another 3 years for cloud shadows.>Hmm. I too would like to see cloud sha. but...BUT...what makes you so sure that in "12 months time the hardware will catch up"? I mean, if the cloud shadow code causes a stutter, then no amount of hardware is going to fix that stutter.That, to me, is the crucial point.Rhett

Count me in, I am definitely ready to get rid of my 4-year old with crappy video card (integrated) and buy a new one. Probably early next year, 2 or 3 months after Vista is released. I am looking at price range from $1500 ~ $2000, hopefully get a real decent graphic card.

I just ordered a Dell XPS 600 with an intel pentium D(duel core), duel 7900 gt's, 2 GB memory, 160 GB SATA hard drive, 650 watt power supply and the other things like cd burner and such. I will be upgrading to DX10 cards probably around August but I think I am ready to play FSX rather well right now.

>Count me in, I am definitely ready to get rid of my 4-year>old with crappy video card (integrated) and buy a new one.LOL, mine too ! i'm waiting for 1 year... time will be long to early 2007. :-hang

TomLiAirplane: Your highness, I would do anything for you, your Majesty.FSX: I know. ;-)

For sure "MD83" if you want to keep your config... keep FS9

>However, if it will>cause considerable performance degradation with average>systems (such as mine).... Don't forget, terrain already casts shadows. That's probably more CPU-intensive than cloud shadows. I would guess that cloud shadows would have a very small impact on performance, particularly if you're not flying too fast - and the clouds are not moving at supersonic speeds! If this feature is not included it's probably because the team didn't have enough time to perfect and debug it. Best regards, Chris

>I mean, if the cloud shadow code causes a>stutter, then no amount of hardware is going to fix that>stutter.Why not? If it's a stutter that's caused by a video or CPU bottleneck, it could be fixed by a hardware upgrade. If it's more of a subroutine taking to long to execute, causing the rest of the program to stutter, then that's another story. Many games have stutters that are fixed either in patches or by hardware upgrades (BF2 stutters with 1GB or less or RAM, fixed with 2GB.). A patch would easily enable cloud shadows in the future without a whole new FS11 release. Since most of the code is already there, they just need to "fix" it. I'd like to see small patches giving us extra features in the future.

>>I mean, if the cloud shadow code causes a>>stutter, then no amount of hardware is going to fix that>>stutter.>>>Why not?Because if it's the code that is causing the stutter, then hardware will not fix it. Fix the code to fix that kind of stutter.>If it's a stutter that's caused by a video or CPU>bottleneck, it could be fixed by a hardware upgrade. Absolutely. But I wrote of a stutter caused by inefficient code, not a stutter from lack of memory or cpu. I know you read my post, so I am confused why you asked such a question, when you wrote the same thing I did. :)>code is already there, they just need to "fix" it. I'd like to>see small patches giving us extra features in the future. >Yes that would be great. They only did 1 patch thought with FS9 so we'll have to see how much patching they do with FSX.Rhett